A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, MARCH 1 , 2022
russia invades ukraineHEIDI LEVINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTMembers of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces receive instructions at one of their command bases near Kyiv. Satellite photos showed a 17-mile-long Russian convoy headed toward the capital.
Ukrainian officials said at
least 11 people were killed and
more were wounded in rocket
strikes and street fighting in
residential areas of Kharkiv on
Monday morning. Human rights
organizations said the Russians
were using cluster bombs, al-
though the Pentagon said it
could not confirm that.
Each side continued to make
claims that were impossible to
prove. Russian Defense Ministry
spokesman Igor Konashenkov
said Russian forces had de-
stroyed 1,146 Ukrainian military
infrastructure facilities, hun-
dreds of armored vehicles and
field artillery weapons, 42 planes
and helicopters, and multiple
rocket launch systems.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said
that an Israeli citizen in a convoy
of his compatriots attempting to
flee the country to neighboring
Moldova was killed near a check-
point south of Kyiv, the first
known foreign citizen to have
been killed in the Ukraine fight-
ing. Israeli media said that Ro-
man Brodsky, in his early 40s,
may have been mistaken for a
Russian combatant and shot by
Ukrainian forces.
Western leaders praised
Ukrainians for putting up such a
fight, which some said had sty-
mied Russian plans for a quick
takeover. Kirby, speaking for the
Pentagon, said that “they have
made it a tough slog for the
Russians to move further south”
and that Russian forces “have
not only experienced a stiff and
determined resistance... b ut
logistic and sustainment prob-
lems.”
Kirby cautioned against
drawing “sweeping conclusions”
at this early stage in what is
likely to be a prolonged conflict.
Although officials estimated
that about 75 percent of the
combat power Russia had
amassed on the border had now
moved into Ukraine, he said
that Putin “still has a lot” in
reserve.
“You’ve got to hand it to the
Ukrainians, who have been fight-
ing for their country,” Kirby said.
“But the Russians will learn from
this... t hey’ve suffered setbacks,
but I don’t think we can just
assume that they will stay set
back. They will work through the
challenges.”Stern reported from Mukachevo,
Ukraine, and DeYoung from
Washington. John Hudson, Missy
Ryan and Dan Lamothe in
Washington; Kareem Fahim in
Istanbul; Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv;
Robyn Dixon in Moscow; and Emily
Rauhala in Brussels contributed to
this report.world governing body, suspend-
ed Russia from competition, as
did the European soccer associa-
tion UEFA.
In an unusual action, the U.N.
General Assembly convened
Monday morning to debate a
resolution condemning Russia’s
actions and demanding it with-
draw. Because the resolution is
being debated in the General
Assembly, rather than the Secu-
rity Council, Russia will not be
able to veto the measure, which
is nonbinding. The debate is
expected to continue for several
days.
France said that Putin had
agreed in a Monday telephone
conversation with French Presi-
dent Emmanuel Macron to stop
attacks on civilians, residential
areas and civilian infrastructure.
But there was little immediate
evidence that Putin was comply-
ing with those demands.
As a number of European
countries opened their doors to
Ukrainian refugees, a bipartisan
group of U.S. senators said they
planned late Monday to formally
ask the Biden administration to
grant a temporary immigration
reprieve for Ukrainians already
in the United States.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.),
who chairs the Senate Judiciary
Committee, said he and other
senators are finalizing a letter to
Biden that would ask the admin-
istration to give temporary pro-
tected status to the roughly
29,500 Ukrainian nationals who
are on various U.S. visas. The
status is granted to foreigners
who are on U.S. soil and lack
permanent status, but who could
face significant threats from war
or natural disasters if they re-
turned to their home countries.
“They include tourists and stu-
dents and people working here
on visas,” Durbin told reporters
on Capitol Hill. “That is some-
thing we could and should do
immediately.”
At the Pentagon, Kirby said
the United States has no insight
about the exact intentions of the
miles-long Russian military col-
umn on the move in Ukraine.
“The main conclusion we can
draw is that they continue to
want to move on Kyiv, to take
Kyiv, capture Kyiv. How they’re
going to do that, whether it’s
encirclement or bombardment
or street-to-street” fighting, he
told reporters, is unknown.
On the fifth day of the inva-
sion, Ukrainians continued to
put up strong resistance to the
Russians, who attacked Kharkiv
and other locations around the
periphery of the country, close to
its borders with Russia and Bela-
rus.Lavrov canceled a trip to Geneva
— where the U.N. human rights
agency agreed to take up the
invasion of Ukraine later this
week — although E.U. officials
said diplomatic flights were ex-
empted from the airspace ban.
NATO member Turkey said it
had warned countries not to
send warships through the Turk-
ish straits, a move that could
limit the passage of Russian
naval vessels through the narrow
waterways that connect the Med-
iterranean and Black seas. The
comments by Mevlut Cavusoglu,
the foreign minister, followed a
telephone conversation with Sec-
retary of State Antony Blinken
on Monday, as well as remarks by
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
that Turkey intended to use its
authority over the straits to pre-
vent the conflict in Ukraine from
“escalating.”
A 1936 treaty, the Montreux
Convention, gives Turkey the
right to regulate passage of war-
ships and other vessels through
the Dardanelles and Bosporus
straits. Turkey has walked a fine
line between Russia and Ukraine
during the conflict, mindful of its
strategic relationships with both
governments.
Meanwhile, the International
Olympic Committee’s executive
board recommended that all in-
ternational sporting organiza-
tions exclude athletes from Rus-
sia and Belarus. FIFA, soccer’sdispleasure with Russia and cut
it off from the rest of the world.
Historically neutral Switzerland
said it would join European
Union sanctions against Russia
and froze the bank accounts of
sanctioned Russians. Finland,
also neutral, said it would send
arms to Ukraine.
European Commission Presi-
dent Ursula von der Leyen said
Ukraine is “one of us, and we
want them in the European
Union,” although she did not
offer details on how or when the
27-member organization would
take a step it has long resisted.
Ukraine was quick to take up
the offer. Zelensky formally
asked Monday to join via what he
called a “special procedure” and
said that “we are grateful to our
partners for being with us. But
our goal is to be together with all
Europeans and, most important-
ly, to be on an equal footing. I’m
sure it’s fair. I’m sure we earned
it. I’m sure it’s possible.”
On Sunday, the E.U. said it
would finance the purchase and
delivery of weapons and other
equipment to Ukraine, the first
time in its history that the eco-
nomic organization has taken
such actions, and would ban
Russian aircraft from its mem-
bers’ airspace.
In response, Russia’s aviation
agency on Monday banned
flights from dozens of countries.
Russian Foreign Minister SergeiNebenzia, called the expulsions a
“hostile” act and a violation of
Washington’s commitments as a
host of the U.N. headquarters. He
said Russia would respond.
In Washington, President
Biden, asked by reporters Mon-
day as he left a White House
event whether Americans should
be worried about the possibility
of nuclear war, responded brisk-
ly, “No.” U.S. officials said there
had been no change in the U.S.
nuclear posture after a Kremlin
announcement Sunday that Rus-
sian nuclear forces had been
placed on alert. Pentagon
spokesman John Kirby said that
officials were “reviewing and an-
alyzing” the situation but that
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
“is c omfortable with the s trategic
deterrence posture of the United
States.”
The value of the ruble fell
nearly 30 percent early Monday
after several nations, including
the United States, moved over
the weekend to block the Krem-
lin’s access to its sizable foreign
currency reserves in the West
and cut off some Russian banks
from the SWIFT financial mes-
saging system. Scattered antiwar
protests continued in Russia,
and lines formed at some banks
and cash machines as Russians
sought to withdraw their money.
In ways large and small, West-
ern nations and their popula-
tions moved to express theirhad been “synchronized” with
the “brutal” attack on Kharkiv.
After the two sides departed,
Kremlin aide Vladimir Medin-
sky, the head of the Russian
delegation, said that they had
found “certain points where we
forecast common ground” and
that they expected to meet again
in the coming days after consult-
ing with their respective presi-
dents.
But any hopes of a break-
through, slim before the talks,
were not improved. Ukraine’s
goal was an immediate cease-fire
and Russian withdrawal. Rus-
sian President Vladimir Putin
has demanded that Ukraine ac-
cept the loss of the eastern
Donbas region, which he recog-
nized as two independent repub-
lics a week ago. Putin has also
insisted that Ukraine end its
quest to join NATO, remove all
its weapons and recognize
Crimea, annexed in 2014, as part
of Russia.
Russian forces that on Sunday
breached Kharkiv, close to the
Russian border, had initially
been repelled by the Ukrainian
military. Renewed Russian bom-
bardment Monday followed a
period of calm in streets that
were largely deserted as local
residents took shelter.
As the siege of Kharkiv contin-
ued, U.S. officials said intelli-
gence reports showed that Bela-
rus, whose President Alexander
Lukashenko is a close ally of
Putin, is preparing to send its
soldiers into Ukraine in support
of the Russian invasion. The
officials cited that support as a
key factor behind a State Depart-
ment decision Monday to sus-
pend U.S. Embassy operations in
Minsk, the Belarus capital.
“It’s very clear Minsk is n ow a n
extension of the Kremlin,” said
one official, who, like others,
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity to discuss a sensitive
security development.
The State Department also
authorized the departure of non-
emergency staff from the U.S.
Embassy in Moscow. And it said
it was beginning the process of
expelling 12 intelligence opera-
tives from the Russian mission in
New York who it said “have
abused their privileges of resi-
dency in the U.S. by engaging in
espionage activities that are ad-
verse to our national security.”
Officials said the expulsions
were not directly related to
events in Ukraine and had been
in the works for several months,
but they underscored the height-
ened U.S.-Russia tensions. Rus-
sia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily
UKRAINE FROM A
Half a million have fled Ukraine, U.N. refugee agency says
SERGEI KHOLODILIN/BELTA/ REUTERS
Mykhailo Podolyak, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, speaks to journalists after meeting Russian
envoys for talks in Belarus. Ukraine’s goal was an immediate cease-fire and Russian withdrawal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded that Ukraine accept the loss of the eastern Donbas region.